


Waltz

by redscout



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, Post-Mission: The First Shall Be Last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redscout/pseuds/redscout
Summary: Charles Smith does not dance. Well, not usually, anyway.





	Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> hey crew ive been beyond frustrated with my lack of drive and needed to post something. this isnt very good. enjoy

It’s an atmosphere you don’t forget easily, the noise and bustle of merriment and Dutch’s horribly scratchy record-player droning off into the open night. Alcohol flows freely, flirting is doled out with very little hesitance; the air is warm with life, and it brings Charles a foot out of his shell. A foot further when companions filter in and out of his little bubble just to say hello, if only because they happen to be a little drunk. A foot further when Lenny seats himself next to him and inquires genuinely about the misshapen piece of wood in his hands. Charles almost loses track of why they’re celebrating while he’s caught up in the moment, until he hears Sean’s boisterous persona behind him kick up a cacophony of laughs that fail to subside minutes and minutes later.

It makes him... smile, just a bit. This happy moment to melt away in after a month of concern and stress following the Blackwater job, frozen in time if only briefly; perhaps it makes him the slightest bit braver, more open not only socially but also to himself. It’s an odd feeling.

Lenny seems to notice the way his attention has waned the second time he sits down next to him, nudging Charles out of his own head and tearing his eyes away from Arthur Morgan, across the way and waltzing around with seemingly anyone he can get his hands on. He starts talking without prompt, but Charles is barely focused, the words flowing in one ear and out the other inadvertently. He’d consider himself a good listener, usually; he might be a little tipsy, he realizes, swirling the whiskey he’d been nursing disinterestedly as his eyes make the gradual journey back over to Arthur, shining brightly across the way.

“...but I think that was the first time I’d ever seen a bear,” Lenny says— finishes, seemingly out of nowhere, and Charles’ gaze snaps back onto him in alarm. Perhaps he was a bit more than a ‘little’ tipsy.

“Um,” he offers, dumbly, and Lenny smirks at him, knowing. Charles wonders absently if he’d kept sobriety close ever since he and Arthur’s little excursion in town, alert and pointed in the way he regards him.

“I get it,” Lenny says, gently.

“Get what?” Charles asks, playing innocent.

“ _Charles,_ ” Lenny chides, smiling wide and knocking him in the shoulder. “Come on. I know.” Charles prays the heat rising to his cheeks is not as visible as he feels it probably is.

“Know wh—“

“I have eyes, I know how you look at him,” Lenny accuses, sitting back and crossing his arms. Charles is burning now, maintaining his usual aloof demeanor regardless. “Just go ask.”

“I’m— no, I don’t even dance,” Charles returns, defensive. “Plus, I... It would just be stupid.”

“ _Hmm,_ ” Lenny hums, mischievous, and Charles can only raise a hand to stop him before he’s cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, “Hey, Arthur!” The two wrestle briefly when Charles attempts to shove the smaller man’s arms down, playfulness interlaced with a kind of panic, but it’s apparently too late, as Arthur curtsies to Molly as they part ways and saunters over to the two. Charles throws Lenny a look, but Lenny merely beams in return, sitting back.

“Lenny!” Arthur greets, with a grin of his own, “And Charles!” His cheeks are already pink, with merriment or liquor, Charles can’t tell. Their gazes meet for the briefest of moments as Arthur acknowledges his presence, and Charles feels his heart jump into his throat without his permission.

“Havin’ fun?” Lenny asks.

“You could say that,” Arthur chuckles, standing with one hand on his hip and the other rubbing the back of his neck. “Lord knows we love an excuse to get drunk. You? I mean, you— are _you_ havin’ fun?”

“I’d say so,” Lenny responds, half in a laugh, and then turns to Charles— who’s been sitting silently, trying not to stare all this time— with purpose. “Charles?”

“Huh? I’m fine,” he says, quickly.

“Just fine?” Lenny pushes.

“I guess this is fun,” Charles huffs back, subdued in his delivery. Arthur’s looking between them gently, seemingly thinking, and his eyes settle on Charles again after a moment, making him stall in place.

“I know what you need,” Arthur says, and the inadvertent sultriness of his tone; his smirk and crinkling of the eyes, a telltale sign of his genuine amusement— it all makes Charles crumble, from the inside out. He very nearly buckles; he knows what he needs, too. But Arthur’s preoccupied.

“Care for a dance, Mister Smith?” he posits, instead, grinning and holding a hand out in suggestion.

“Arthur— I don’t dance,” Charles insists, trying his hardest to be sure he’s not going to plunge himself into a situation that might mortify him. “I’m fine, you don’t have to—“

“ _Charles,_ ” Arthur pleads, his tone laced with a kind of sweetness that makes Charles melt a little on the inside, and he swallows, trying to keep his gaze locked with Arthur’s adamantly.

“Yeah, come on, Charles,” Lenny presses, sitting forward, and Charles shoots him a glare. He’s normally not one to give into peer pressure, but... it wasn’t as if he didn’t actually want to dance, as humiliating as the action would be in and of itself, so long as it was with Arthur.

“Fine,” he sighs out, eventually, moving to place his carving materials down neatly next to him, and Arthur hoots as Lenny gives a little clap. “But just one.”

“One dance, Charles Smith, I can do that,” Arthur drawls, as Charles takes his hand to stand. He’s being lead before he’s even standing up straight, and he stumbles to keep up with Arthur, into a space in the grass, illuminated orange by the still-setting sun. Charles sees the way he glows in the light when they stop, feels the warmth in the moment, and he quits focusing so very hard on whether or not they’re being stared at. Anxiety fades when he meets eyes with Arthur again, and the taller man gives the slightest hint of a smile, a genuine one, and Charles decides to dance.

It’s clumsy, which isn’t all that surprising— if they’re not stepping on each other’s feet, they’re concentrating too hard on trying not to do that— but Charles realizes he doesn’t care, and Arthur doesn’t seem to care, either. At one point Arthur nearly trips, but he _laughs,_ short and stupid, and Charles melts a little further. A little further when Arthur’s fingers flex against his own hand, pull him the tiniest bit closer. A little further when he lets himself smile back, and Arthur’s eyes light up in turn. It continues like this for some time, stumbles and _giggles_ and all, a short moment in time between the two of them and nothing more.

And then it is, of course, jarring, when they eventually separate, their one, short waltz concluded, and Charles makes light of the fact that he didn’t really want to separate at all, could’ve gone for another dance, at least one more. He doesn’t push it, though, merely says, “That wasn’t so bad,” as if it were at all.

“It wasn’t,” Arthur returns. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Charles asks.

“I don’t know.” Arthur’s eye contact peters off, and he stares out somewhere, suddenly serious. Charles makes to follow his gaze, but he adds, “I like you, Charles,” gives him a curt nod and a half smile, and moves off in the opposite direction whence they came. Charles stands, statuesque, in his wake, feeling the fire inside of him crackle and grow greatly. He lets himself glow with the still-fading sunlight, briefly, before he moves back over to where he sat, with Lenny still there, face lit up with what looks like wonder.

“So?” Lenny asks, when Charles has a seat back in his chair. The heat in his cheeks is situated, but he maintains his pokerface, thoughtful.

“I don’t know,” he says, honestly.

“Did you have fun?”

“I guess.”

“You’re impossible, Charles,” Lenny sighs, in amusement, and then gets up to leave. Charles watches him go with a little smirk, and lets his eyes rest back over on Arthur Morgan, going about the rest of his night evenly and joyously. He rubs the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully, and focuses all of his energy into thinking fondly on that moment they shared, however silly, nestled quietly and comfortably amidst the rest of the night. And then he gets up, and leaves, and leaves his thoughts behind.


End file.
